Friday, August 19, 2016

Moments of Beauty: Goshen

Moment of Beauty #1: Lane Miller
Throughout Dustin and Lane's match, there were numerous moments of beauty. Part of the reason I can remember them is because I stood there watching so much of their match deciding third set. Also, they played a ridiculous amount of high quality shots. These shots especially included their solid, simple returns, driven at the feet of their opponents. But the one shot that stands out as memorable and beautiful wasn't a groundstroke. It was a lucky reflex volley. Lane was being attacked by an overhead, as he stood just three feet beyond the net. The score was 5-1 favoring the Bruins in the third set tiebreak. The overhead was pounded beautifully at Lane, and trying to get out of the way and protect himself, Lane threw up his racket in defense. It hung with the handle near his right ear and the face of the racket covering his back. As he spun, the overhead hit the strings of his racket with perfection, accidentally lobbing over Goshen's net man and landing in the back right corner of the court. The Red Hawk players were shocked, stuttered and didn't react in time to reach it. It was a memorable moment in one of our all time memorable matches.

Moment of Beauty #2: Simon Hurst and Brandon Nguyen
Sometimes moments of beauty don't have to be from shots. In the third set of their important match at #1D, Simon and Brandon worked their way toward match point. At match point, Brandon rocketed a return crosscourt that Diego Torres tried to lob. Simon got under the weak lob and began to imagine his glorious overhead ending the match. Not quite, as he framed it and sent the ball spinning wildly toward the center of the court. Torres quickly scooped the sideways bouncing ball up, but set Brandon up for the match winning overhead. Brandon swung hard, and sent the ball straight sideways into Byeong's court and almost into the side fence. Both had a chance at glory, both failed, and now we were back to deuce in the game. And they looked at each other and laughed! I loved it. Tennis is fun, and being able to laugh off mistakes and relax and refocus is key to great victories. It's beautiful to see players not take each mistake, even big ones, too seriously.

Moment of Beauty #3: The Team
It was nice to have a rallying match for the team tonight, a match that we could all get together and watch. It was nice that the final match on mattered to whether we won or lost as a team. Because seeing the team seated together and cheering, encouraging, and being together - that's one of my most favorite things! Unfortunately, you don't all get locker stickers :-)